The world’s weirdest theme parks

Who needs Disney when there are parks devoted to border-crossing?

“Ark Encounter,” a theme park devoted to Noah’s Ark — which will, if it’s built, include a 500-foot Ark and Tower of Babel — was denied approximately $18 million in tax incentives this week, as the state argued that it will violate the separation of church on state by hiring based on religion. The organization behind the project — an evangelical Christian group called Answers in Genesis or AiG — plans to forge ahead. “There are modern-day Ark legends being spread far and wide by secularists who are seeking to hinder the Ark Encounter project of Answers in Genesis, a full-size Noah’s Ark to open in Northern Kentucky in 2016,” they said in a statement. They also erected billboards around the state with the message: “To all our intolerant liberal friends: “Thank God You Can’t Sink This Ship.”

Here are 5 other unusual theme parks from around the world:

Atlas Obscura

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Parque EcoAlberto, El Alberto, Mexico

Theme parks are going to the dark side. Parque EcoAlberto, in central Mexico, offers visitors an experience they may never forget — and one that they are implored not to repeat in real life: a simulated illegal U.S.-Mexico border crossing. For entry fees of around $20, visitors have the pleasure of being blindfolded and surrounded by the sound of dogs and sirens. And instead of park employees dressed as Mickey Mouse and Snow White? They get angry border patrol guards and violent drug smugglers. Fake ones, of course. The “Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage” at Disneyland, it ain’t. On a happier note, regular hiking and zip lines across ravines are also available.

Reuters

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Proposed theme park, Abbottabad, Pakistan

Osama bin Laden is no Mickey Mouse. And Abbottabad, Pakistan, hardly seems like a candidate for the site of the next Magic Kingdom. But the neighborhood where the world’s most notorious and wanted terrorist spent his final days — before being hunted down and killed by U.S. Navy Seals — has been tapped as the location for a new $30 million amusement park. “We have enough space now where bin Laden’s compound was demolished,” Jamaluddin Khan, the deputy provincial minister for tourism, recently told Reuters last year. The government rejected the idea of a public park, partly due to concerns that some people might call it Osama Park.

The theme park, which would take at least five years to complete, will be part of a 50-acre riverside development in Abbottabad that includes a zoo, water sports, rock climbing and paragliding. “Local people are going to go to that area out of curiosity, so why not give them something to see?” says travel expert and consumer advocate Christopher Elliott. Plus, it could bring some much needed money to the local economy.

Wikimedia Commons

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Holy Land Experience, Orlando, Fla.

Think “Jesus Christ: Superstar” with fresh air and more of an educational bent. This theme park offers recreations from the Garden of Eden, Jerusalem street markets and — in what could certainly be deemed a sharp detour from other parks — the live crucifixion of Jesus Christ with a wailing actor playing the title role covered in fake blood. “For a lot of people, it’s a spiritual experience. For visitors who are not evangelical, parts of it may be disturbing,” Elliott says. Len Testa, co-author of “The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World,” is one such critic. “I get that it’s one of the central themes of the new testament, which has brought comfort and hope to billions,” he says. “But from a theme park perspective, I think it’s a terrible idea.”

Wikimedia Commons

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Stalin World, Druskininkai, Lithuania

No one gets sent to the gulag at Stalin World, a 500-acre theme park featuring the former Soviet dictator. But surrounded by statues of the communist leader, visitors might feel compelled to watch what they say. Officially named Grutas Park, the grounds include watch towers and barbed wire fences. On a less oppressive note, Stalin World also features a small zoo and a playground for children called Luna Park. According to the park’s website, its mission is to educate people about Soviet history and to take “the ‘idols’ off the pedestal.” Hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians were deported to gulags during Stalin’s oppressive regime during the mid-20th century.

Wikimedia Commons

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Love Land, Jeju Island, South Korea

This erotic theme park is strictly adults-only. Opened in 2004 on Jeju Island in South Korea, Love Land features 140 sculptures of erotic art. They come in the form of phallic symbols, and they illustrate various acts of romantic entanglement. (In 2009, another Love Land theme park in China was shut down before it even opened its doors.) “Some parks are wacky because they get attention and it’s a good marketing tool,” says John Gerner, the managing director of Leisure Business Advisors, a Richmond, Va.-based consulting group. But there’s probably a bigger reason Love Land is popular with honeymooners. It’s on a volcanic island with a 224-kilometer semi-tropical forested national park, a wild coastline with waterfalls and some of the most elaborate and longest “lava tube” caves in the world.

Oast House Archive / Wikimedia Commons

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Dickens World, Kent, England

Opened in 2007, this venue is based in Chatham Dockyard in Kent, close to where Charles Dickens — who wrote such classics as “A Christmas Carol” and “David Copperfield” — lived (briefly) as a child. “You have to wonder whether the breakfast buffet consists entirely of gruel,” Testa says. (It doesn’t.) It’s certainly nowhere near comparable to Universal Orlando’s “Wizarding World of Harry Potter” attraction. Instead, Dickens World is housed inside a large warehouse. It has a Victorian classroom, an interactive haunted house, a “Great Expectations” boat ride through a re-creation of the old sewers of London, and a “Fagin’s Den” playground for children named after the villain and corrupter of youth from “Oliver Twist.” It opens in March for the 2013 season.

Bobak / Wikimedia Commons

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Gatorland, Orlando

What began as a roadside attraction in 1949 has steadily grown over the past 60 years. Today, the 110-acre park includes wrestling classes with alligators, an aviary, a breeding marsh, petting zoo and, of course, a gift shop. Attractions listed on its website include the Gator Night Shine: “Armed with only a flashlight and a few hot dogs, you bravely make your way along the winding wooden walkways of Gatorland’s Alligator Breeding Marsh.” Still, most children expect to hit the more mainstream attractions when they visit Florida with their families. “The Disney vacation is a birthright for every American child,” Elliott says.

This story was originally published in February 2013 and updated on Dec. 12, 2014.

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